Calvert, MD–The freshmen from Rising Sun welcomed the Philadelphia Athletics to Brick Meetinghouse on a beautiful day for baseball. The boys from Brick Meetinghouse also welcomed back The Cisco Kid Brian Lighthill after he tore his deltoid in the Maryland State Tournament. The boys from Brick Meetinghouse were down 9 in the first and foyght back to take the win in the bottom of the ninth. Due ro the length of game one and the late hour rhe gentlemen agreed to a truncated game 2. The Rising Sun club got up early and stayed on top throughout to take game 2.
Greg Banker Rodenbaugh picked up the wins. Doug Easy Uhde was the ballist of the day. He was never put and scored the winning run in game on with a steal of home.  In the first game Rising Sun won 19-18 and 14-5 in the nightcap.

Stasburg, PA–The Elkton Eclipse found a second home as they once again found big success at the Strasburg Rail Road Tournament.  The Eclipse won the Spring Tournament back in May and looked to do the same in the October event featuring the 2013 MAVBBL champion Milford Excelsiors, West Chester Brandywines, Harrisburg Keystones and the Eclipse.  In the first semi final game, Milford downed Harrisburg while Elkton downed West Chester 32-4 in the other match.  This set up a match between Elkton and the Excelsiors.  They had only met one time this year with the Excelsiors posting 8 runs in the first and winning by 4in August.

Elkton made sure this time around it was not much of a contest as it won 24-9 to take home the Fall Strasburg RR Cup.  A special thanks to the Strasburg Rail Road for a great day of vintage base ball and one that we hope is repeated in 2014.

ATLANTICS DOWN MUTUALS THEN PLAY A MIXED NINE MATCH

The Mutuals played their final game of the season against the Atlantics yesterday.  After the first game (Atlantics 20, Mutuals 4), we decided to make the second game a mixed pick 9, dividing up the Mutuals and Atlantics and playing simply for the fun of playing.  I proposed this idea to the Atlantics and they accepted.  I thought it would be a good show of unity and camaraderie in the vintage base ball community.  And in the end, just be a fun game and get back to the basics of why we all do this,  just like most of us did when we were younger, we would go to the park with our friends, divide the teams and play for the fun of it.  It was a great way to end the season.

Perhaps other clubs in the MAVBBL will consider doing the same!

Harrington, DE– The Excelsior Base Ball Club of Milford captured the 2013 MAVBBL title this past weekend to backup its regular season title.  9 clubs gathered in southern Delaware for a chance to take home this year’s championship, but in the end, the club with the best record came away with a tougher than expected title.

The story of the weekend was the #6 Diamond State Base Ball Club of Delaware who had to go through 3 of the best clubs in the Country if they were going to win the championship and they came within 1 run of doing just that.  In their quarterfinal, they stymied the #3 seed Eclipse from Elkton 9-3 holding the usually powerful Elkton club to just 6 hits.  This set up a match with the #2 seed and perennial power, the Atlantic of Brooklyn.  The Atlantics were no match though for the Diamond State Club though as Delaware routed the Atlantics 13-3.  In the championship though, Delaware just couldn’t produce quite enough runs and their run ended to Milford 4-3.  The Excelsiors captured their first league title in their first year.

Games that weekend included Elizabeth downing West Chester to play Brooklyn.  Brooklyn won that match 8-4 to set up its semi final against Delaware.  #5 Lewes defeated #4 Talbot to go to the other semi final against Milford who downed Washington in its first round game.  Milford shut out Lewes to get to the championship.  In the 3rd place game, Brooklyn downed Lewes 17-12.

A big thanks to the clubs who came down for the tournament and thank you to Milford and Harrington for hosting this year’s event.  The 2014 MAVBBL Championship Tournament will be in Old Bethpage at the home of the NY Mutuals.

The Mid Atlantic Vintage Base Ball League’s 2013 Championship Tournament will take place October 5 and 6 in Harrington, Delaware.  The number one seed and host of this year’s event is the Milford Excelsiors.  The Southern Delaware Base Ball Club will be hosting 9 other clubs this weekend in a celebration of the MAVBBL.  The action starts at noon on Saturday with Philadelphia playing Washington and West Chester taking on Elizabeth.  At 2pm Lewes plays Talbot while Milford takes on the winner of the Washington/Philadelphia game.  Finally, Brooklyn plays the winner of the Elizabeth/West Chester game.  At 4pm, in the last quarterfinal the Diamond State BBC of Delaware plays the Elkton Eclipse.  The semi finals are the next day at noon followed by the championship and 3rd place games at 2pm.  There’s still a chance to see all your favorite clubs all weekend though as there will be a festival of teams playing as they bow out of the tournament. 

The event will take place at Browns Branch County Park right off Killen’s Pond Road.  Take Route 1 south past the Dover Air Force base to Milford.  Where Rt 1 splits at 113, bare right on to Rt 113 to the 5th red light, turn west on to Milford Harrington Pkwy .  Follow 5 miles to Killens Pond Road.  Browns Branch is 1 mile on the left.